The Danish Girl

For F*** Magazine

THE DANISH GIRL

Director : Tom Hooper
Cast : Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, Amber Heard, Sebastian Koch
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 120 mins
Opens : 7 January 2016
Rating : R21 (Mature Theme)

An adaptation of David Ebershoff’s 2000 novel of the same name, The Danish Girl tells the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first known people to undergo gender reassignment surgery. It is 1926 and Lili, born Einar Wegener (Redmayne), is a landscape painter married to portrait artist Gerda (Vikander). When a model is late, Gerda has Einar stand in for her, wearing the model’s stockings and shoes. This unlocks Einar’s lifelong identification as female, and he begins to cultivate the persona of “Lili”. Gerda’s portraits of Lili attract the attention of the art world and she is invited to stage an exhibition in Paris, and Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil (Schoenaerts), a childhood friend of Einar’s. Hans’ attraction to Gerda establishes a complicated love triangle as Gerda struggles in supporting Einar’s transition into a woman. Eventually, Lili and Gerda seek the help of Dr. Wanerkos (Koch), who performs a two-part sexual reassignment surgery that is unprecedented and risky but is Lili’s only hope.

            Playwright Lucinda Coxon adapted The Danish Girl and the screenplay made the rounds for a decade before the film finally got made. The subject matter made it something of a hard sell, with Charlize Theron, then Gwyneth Paltrow attached to the role of Gerda opposite Nicole Kidman as Einar/Lili. Tomas Alfredson was initially set to direct, then was replaced with Lasse Hallström before that incarnation fell through. Director Tom Hooper of The King’s Speech and Les Misérables brings an awards contender pedigree to the project – it’s a bonus that star Redmayne is fresh off his Oscar win for The Theory of Everything. The film may be called “The Danish Girl”, but just as there was nary a French accent in earshot in Les Misérables, everyone in this movie sounds very English indeed. It can be seen as pandering to Academy voters, who seem to equate Englishness with prestige.

            While first stepping out in public as Lili, Einar worriedly asks his wife “am I pretty enough?” The Danish Girl is a film that does seem to be worried it isn’t pretty enough in a self-conscious manner, but cinematographer Danny Cohen, costume designer Paco Delgado and production designer Eve Stewart, all Hooper’s collaborators from Les Mis, ensure it is quite the pretty movie to look at. Any way one slices it, there was always going to be controversy surrounding the film, and it is incredibly difficult to appease everyone where the hot-button issue of gender identity is concerned. In a way, the period setting is a costume that lends a non-traditional story a more familiar guise, all of this prestige picture classiness a way in for audiences who might otherwise be clutching their pearls at the thought of a movie about a transgender woman.

            This brings us to the elephant in the room: the casting of a cisgender man to play a transgender woman. Transgendered actors are slowly gaining more visibility via projects like Orange is the New Black, but it seems we’re still some ways off from having a trans woman headline a mainstream awards contender film. There’s also the matter of drawing attention and scrutiny, plus the danger of typecasting. More cynically, the Academy loves physical transformations, and Redmayne has already bagged one Oscar after undergoing a physical transformation to play a real person. It’s difficult to talk about but it’s a conversation worth having and we’re trying to take a balanced view. Redmayne put a great deal of thought into the portrayal and spent time with trans women including activist Paris Lees, who gave Redmayne her blessing. “As a trans woman, I don’t think that if and when they make a biopic of my life I would want a cisgender man playing me,” Lees told Out Magazine. “Politically, it makes me groan. But if anybody’s going to do this justice, then I’m happy it’s Eddie. We had a good chat about everything.”

            The hype surrounding Redmayne’s portrayal is worth buying into, because this is an excellent, soul-baring performance. Lili’s emotional journey in coming to terms with her gender identity is eloquently conveyed by Redmayne. When the film is in danger of getting swallowed up by the larger issues at play, his portrayal pulls it back to a remarkably humane sensitivity. Vikander is just as worthy of praise and there is a good deal for her to sink her teeth into with the role of Gerda. This is a woman who sees the man she fell in love with slowly vanish, but her selfless love for him makes her want to see her husband arrive at a place where he is happy and comfortable with himself. Vikander’s performance is at once raw and measured, and if there was any doubt that she is 2015’s biggest breakout star, The Danish Girl erases said doubt once and for all.

            The Danish Girl is based on a fictionalised account of Lili’s life, with most of the characters besides Lili and Gerda created from whole cloth by Ebershoff. As such, both Whishaw and Schoenaerts can sometimes feel like hangers-on in the proceedings, but in addition to Gerda, their characters reinforce just how vital the support of a loved one is in undergoing a transition.

            The Danish Girl does over-romanticise and simplify Lili’s story a fair bit, side-stepping Gerda’s possible bisexuality and the eventual dissolution of Lili and Gerda’s relationship. The final scene also contains a visual metaphor that is heavy-handed in quite the cringe-worthy manner. However, Lili’s story is an important one to tell and there is considerable talent behind this biopic. The more jaded might dismiss this out of hand as shameless awards bait and it does possess those elements, but above and beyond all that, the genuine emotional resonance of the story rings true.

Summary: While not as challenging and in-depth an exploration of Lili Elbe’s life and times as it could have been, powerful performances and technical polish make this a worthwhile telling of a moving story.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

3 Days to Kill

For F*** Magazine

3 DAYS TO KILL

Director: McG
Cast:         Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 100 mins
Opens: 6 March 2014
Rating: TBA

After playing Pa Kent in last year’s Man Of Steel, Kevin Costner is pulling daddy duty again in 3 Days To Kill. This time, he’s playing veteran CIA agent Ethan Renner, who is stricken with brain cancer that has spread to his lungs. On the brink of death, he is offered a miracle drug by fellow CIA agent Vivi (Heard) in exchange for a successful kill. The target: terrorist arms dealer Wolfgang “The Wolf” Braun (Richard Sammel). With mere months left to live, Ethan goes to Paris where his estranged daughter Zoey (Steinfeld) is living with her mother, Ethan’s ex-wife Christine (Nielsen). Having neglected his wife and daughter due to the obligations of his dangerous job, Ethan must make up for lost time, fight through the drug’s hallucinogenic side effects and stop the Wolf once and for all.

Moviegoers know what to expect from Luc Besson, who established his brand of Euro-action in the 90s and has been directing and producing such genre entries ever since. Besson co-wrote 3 Days to Kill with Adi Hasak, but directing duties were handled by McG who, suffice it to say, is not the most popular director out there. 3 Days To Kill is something of a mess but at least it doesn’t look it, cinematographer Thierry Arbogast having lensed Besson movies such as La Femme Nikita, Léon and The Fifth Element. Beautiful sunrises over Paris and seedy, neon-lit nightspots get showcased in equal measure. However, this can’t help but lend a certain ersatz quality to the film; that McG is trying his hardest to approximate that Besson look and it comes off as self-conscious. Furthermore, the premise is practically identical to that of Besson’s French TV series No Limit.




3 Days To Kill feels like two different movies hastily stitched together, in many ways coming off like an unsuccessful version of True Lies. In both films, a spy has to address domestic problems in his family life while saving the day. However, True Lies was an all-out action comedy, while 3 Days To Kill is unable to settle on a tone. It wants to be taken seriously as an action thriller and there are some fairly brutal combat sequences and a violent onscreen death or two. However, we’re also supposed to be invested in the melodramatic tale of a duty-bound father trying his hardest to reconnect with his stubborn, distant teenager. In addition to that, the film’s attempts at humour are awkward and misjudged. For example, lots of serious confrontations get interrupted by Icona Pop’s cheerful I Love It, which Zoey has chosen as her father’s cell-phone ringtone.

Costner has been trying for a comeback and appears to be after a Liam Neeson-style career renaissance – after all, Taken was also produced by Luc Besson. Costner is okay but he lacks Neeson’s intensity and just comes across as somewhat bored, at times dangerously close to phoning it in Bruce Willis-style. Steinfeld’s Zoey is a thinly-sketched bundle of “rebellious teen” clichés, right down to her petulant insistence on addressing her father by his first name. Steinfeld is certainly better than this, but the character is just annoyingly written. Heard does a lot of posturing as a femme fatale, her exaggerated appearance with that peroxide blonde do and uber-red lips making it seem as though she’s just walked off the set of Machete Kills. Also, it’s never made clear why Vivi can’t just kill the Wolf herself.



3 Days To Kill isn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill, formulaic spy action flick, but it seems it might have been better off as one. Even with a ticking-clock element built in, the film fails to muster a sense of urgency or tension. That’s because the secondary plot involving Ethan’s reconciliation with his daughter is shoved to the fore, stopping the action from gaining any proper momentum and feeling like someone’s changed the channel from a spy thriller to a sappy family drama. While the tonal dissonance isn’t quite as jarring as in Besson’s own Malavita/The Family/We’re a Nice Normal Family, it still gets in the way of what could’ve been a slick if forgettable actioner. The presence of a large family led by patriarch Jules (Eriq Ebouaney) who are squatters in Ethan’s flat is an obvious attempt to up the heart-warming quotient. Add stereotypical comic-relief side characters like limo driver Mitat (Marc Andréoni) and Italian Guido (Bruno Ricci) to the mix and 3 Days To Kill just ends up being muddled and unsatisfying.

Summary: An awkward combination of father-daughter relationship drama and espionage action thriller, 3 Days To Kill fails to hold together.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Machete Kills

For F*** Magazine

MACHETE KILLS

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast:  Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Carlos Estevez/Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, Demián Bichir, Alexa Vega, Vanessa Hudgens, Cuba Gooding, Jr., William Sadler, Marko Zaror, Mel Gibson
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 132 mins
Opens: 17 October 2013
Rating: M18 (Violence and Coarse Language)

Dog goes woof, cat goes meow, bird goes tweet, the mouse goes squeak – and Machete? Why, Machete kills, of course. Everyone’s favourite grizzled ex-Federale - matted hair, perma-frown, moustache, tattoos, signature bladed weapon and all – has returned. Following his appearance in the fake trailer attached to Grindhouse and the 2010 feature film Machete, the character is back – as “Trailer Voiceover Guy” (Corey Burton) might put it – with a vengeance.

Machete (Trejo) and his love interest/partner from the first film, Agent Sartana Rivera (Alba) take on a gang of corrupt U.S. soldiers selling weapons to a drug cartel. The mission goes wrong and Machete is framed for a crime he’d never imagine committing. His chance at redemption? Accepting a mission to take down crazed revolutionary Marcos Mendez (Bichir), on executive command of President Rathcock (Sheen). Machete runs into a colourful rogues gallery, including master of disguise El Cameleón (Goggins, Gaga, Gooding Jr. and Banderas), trigger-happy madame Desdemona (Vergara) and her girls, and Mendez’s towering henchman Zaror (Marko Zaror). Naturally, there’s a mastermind Machete will have to contend with – megalomaniac weapons and aerospace magnate Luther Voz (Gibson). It’s a good thing our knife-wielding hero has allies like Luz (Rodriguez) to count on.



You probably know right off the bat if this movie is for you or if it isn’t. It’s exactly what it says on the tin: an egregiously violent, goofy, gleefully tasteless action exploitation flick, heavy on the CGI blood splatter and low on that pesky sense-making. Nobody can accuse multi-hyphenate director Robert Rodríguez and gang of false advertising. Early in his career, Rodríguez envisioned perennial tough guy (and second cousin of his) Danny Trejo as the Mexican equivalent of an action hero like Charles Bronson or Jean-Claude Van Damme, though apparently he had to pay his dues in Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films first before finally headlining the 2010 flick.

“Sequel escalation” is something moviegoers have come to expect: a follow-up that tries to be bigger, better and more over the top than the first. For better or for worse, Machete Kills is consistent in carrying over the style of the first movie but does try to stretch the scope. For example, while the baddies in the first film were a corrupt senator, his aide and a notorious drug kingpin, the villains here are pretty much old-school Bond bad guys: a supervillain bent on establishing his new world order, a warlord with a split personality, an uber-femme fatale armed with a Gatling gun bustier and a villain remarkably similar to Spider-Man foe Chameleon, right down to the name. It might as well be this way, the levels of incredulity turned up to eleven, since nobody was interested in making a “realistic” film in the first place. If anything’s really out of place, it’s a scene in which Madame Desdemona talks about suffering sexual abuse at the hands of her father. This is particularly squirm-inducing amidst the wanton silliness of the rest of the film.



A top-drawer cast partaking in this veritable orgy of base, pulpy genre hijinks is arguably the biggest reason to check this out. To call this ensemble “eclectic” would be an understatement. Leading the charge is Trejo, who is one of those actors whose aura of badass transcends screen roles and into real life; he probably is pretty much playing himself. The beauty of Trejo’s performance is that he plays it straight as an arrow. Considering how everyone else is given carte blanche to cartwheel all over the place, Trejo’s method is more effective than if he played Machete yelling every line and spouting endless one-liners. Most of his one-liners in the film are some variation on “Machete don’t ____”, taking off the unexpected popularity of the “Machete don’t text” line from the first one.

It might be easy to think that the Academy Award winners and nominees in Machete Kills are doing nothing short of slumming it but gosh darn if they don’t look like they’re having a grand old time. Demián Bichir’s Mendez – noble freedom fighter one minute and genocidal lunatic the next – is fun, but the show does belong to Mel Gibson. It seems he has decided that taking on villainous parts in movies like this and the upcoming The Expendables 3 are a way of paying penance for past indiscretions; Mad Mel putting those crazy eyes to excellent use as a cross between Richard Branson and Moonraker villain Hugo Drax. One of the character’s entertaining eccentricities is a fondness for Star Wars; we’re willing to bet you won’t see Mel Gibson and Danny Trejo sitting in a landspeeder in any other movie.



For everyone who thought Jamie Foxx wasn’t sufficiently believable as leader of the free world in White House Down, take a gander at Charlie Sheen (gamely choosing to be credited by his birth name, Carlos Estévez) as the Prez. There’s the added bonus that his dad Martin Sheen memorably portrayed a U.S. President in The West Wing – insert “George H.W. and George W. Bush” joke here. Where Sheen is, a bevy of beauties is never too far away – Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara and Alexa Vega all contributing to the shameless eye candy quotient. Slightly creepy if you realize Rodríguez directed a pre-pubescent Vega in the Spy Kids flicks, and here she is in assless chaps. We are obligated to point out that in spite of adhering to the grindhouse ethos in all other areas, this film lacks the gratuitous nudity of its predecessor. Lady Gaga’s involvement is a piece of stunt casting that doesn’t misfire; she probably is even more outrageous in everyday life than her character in this is anyway.

Machete Kills is so lowbrow that the brows might be mistaken for a moustache. There are those who will view this as worthless trash and others who will go along with the elaborate joke, choose to humour Rodríguez and company and try to have a good time. We can’t say either reaction is totally unwarranted. Oh, and the fake trailer for Machete Kills Again – In Space, with Michelle Rodriguez yelling “eat photons, bitches!” is genuinely funny.

SUMMARY: A second helping of a cheesy, greasy glop of a quesadilla – hold the salad. With Machete Kills, everything depends on if you’re willing to risk indigestion for a guilty pleasure.

RATING: 3 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong